Jennifer Pallister—A Case Study

I inter‐viewed male-to-female transsexual, Jennifer Claire Pallister, a.k.a., Jennifer Pallister, a.k.a., Randy Pallister on Wednesday, February 8, 2000—seven years prior to his death. [1] Pallister is pictured on the cover of the book the Men & Women Who Transgress Gender Norms.

During the interview Pallister presented himself as a one-year post-operative, male-to-female transsexual, who successfully "stick handled" his way past all the bureaucratic obstacles and underwent a gender reassignment surgical procedure (GRS). At the time of the interview Pallister was legally female and had been apparently living as a female on a full time basis for approximately four years. However, I didn't see Pallister as the success that he saw himself as.

Pallister was arguably a talented software developer with an erratic work history. In 1994 at the height of his career Pallister worked for Delrina on the development of WinFax. (Symantec later acquired Delrina and the company became known as Symantec Delrina.) However, over the course of his gender transition, Pallister watched his life spiral out-of-control. After searching for documents on the transsexual subject on the Internet and immersing himself in page after page dedicated to the topic, Pallister lost his job at Symantec Delrina due to admitted productivity issues. Later, Pallister became chronically unemployed and at one point found himself living at a women's homeless shelter as a male-to-female transsexual. Ultimately, on August 29, 2007 Pallister died of complications stemming from alcohol abuse. Pallister was an alcoholic his/her entire life. He was 46-years-old at the time of his death.

In the interview Pallister admonished the medical practitioners, who treated him, including endrochronologist, Dr. Betty Chan, who he repeatedly referred to an "asshole" (59:12,19,20), Dr. John Goodhew, a general practitioner, who he called a "maniacal prick" (60:2), and the staff of the gender identity clinic at the CAMH, who he called "numbskulls".

During the interview Pallister volunteered that he suffered from a number of mental disorders, including a borderline personality disorder (35:20), an attention deficit disorder (not on the transcript, but confirmed) (35:5) and a depressive mood disorder (24:21) and that he was in his words "just beginning to scratch the surface" of his mental health challenges (35:19). Had Pallister voluteered his true mental health background to the psychiatrist he obtained his reference letter from he would have certainly been rejected. All candidates to undergo a GRS procedure in North American are required to have two references letters, including one from a licensed psychiatrist and one from a licensed psychologist. The one from the psychiatrist is the more important of the two.

Pallister was chronically unemployed at the time of the interview, and reportely earned a small amount of money from disability insurance (66:15). In fact Pallister last words during the interview speaks volumes as to his awful situation. Pallister said with a degree of anger and distress:

I have no money. [...] I can afford an apartment and a couple - some coffee and maybe the odd beer, but that's it. That's my life.(70:1)

Despite undergoing a number of feminizing procedures, including a hair transplant and a GRS procedure, Pallister suffered from obsessive compulsive thoughts revolving around his anatomical sex the balance of his life. After the surgery Pallister reported being obsessed about his voice, which he regarded as masculine and not feminine. In fact he reported that he thought about his voice every day. Pallister also reported being obsessed about conceiving a child and undergoing natural child birth. Post-operative, male to female transsexuals are medically incapable of conceiving children—a function exclusive to the female of the human species. In fact it is not medically possible for a male to turn into a female. Yet, Pallister, who knew he was anatomically male, jumped from obsession to obsession—all relating to his anatomical sex.

Although I didn't report Pallister as being autogynephilic in the book, I believed during the interview that I was, indeed, staring in the face of autogynephilic addiction—a theoretical type of behavioral addiction and variant of autogynephilia. I should point out that the DSM V—the current guide to diagnosis of mental disorders, put forward by the American Psychiatric Association—does not recognize autogynephilia as a sexual disorder. Nonetheless, Autogynephilia as defined by Ray Blanchard is the paraphilic tendency for a male to become sexually aroused by the thought of either being or turning into a female.

Pallister reported a number of sexual incidents with women that were rooted in autogynephilia and not behavior indigenous to females. Pallister's proclivities towards transsexualism began as early as age 5—the same age males become sexually aware (e.g., what arouses you). This contrasts with gender identity, which forms at 18-months of age and is immutable. [Diamond, Milton] Pallister reportedly engaged in cross-gender role play during intercourse with a female in the tenth grade. Pallister directed the the young girl to play act to have a penis while Pallister play acted as having a vagina. Pallister reported the female got on top of him and started "humping" him like she had a penis and Pallister a "cunt". (15:25, 16:1) Pallister mentioned another women, who he described as a girlfriend he dated, when he was 30-years-old, whom he found attractive. Pallister reported that this woman was from Guiana but her lineage was from Kashmir (28:15). Pallister reported that he not only wanted to have sexual relations with this woman but also he wanted to look like her as well (29:5).

+1 As a child, did people think you were about as masculine as other boys?
+1 Are you nearly as attracted to women as to men? Or more attracted to women? Or equally uninterested in both? (Add 1 if "Yes" to any of these.)
+1 Were you over the age of 40 when you began to live full time as a woman?
+1 Have you ever been in the milirary or worked as a policeman or truck driver, or been a computer programmer, businessman, lawyer, scientist, engineer, or physician?
-1 Is your ideal partner a straight man?
-1 As a child, did people think you were an unusually feminine boy?
-1 Were you under the age of 25 when you began to live full time as a woman?
-1 Have you worked as a hairstylist, beautician, female impersonator, lingerie model, or prostitute?

Pallister reported that while living as a man, he had a number of girlfriends and engaged in sexual intercourse with women. Other than a homosexual encounter at age 8, Pallister never reported any sexual interest in men. Even in that incident Pallister derived sexual arousal from the thought of being female. I would add a plus 1 to Pallister's score based solely on what he reported. Pallister reported he was a software developer. I would add a plus 1 to Pallister's score based solely on his career as a software developer. Jennifer Pallister reported that he began to live full time at age 33. Although age 33 is seven years shy of 40, 33 is closer to 40 than 25. I would add a plus 1 to Pallister's score based on the age he began to live as a full time male to female transsexual. I score Pallister at plus 3. Following Bailey's test for autogynephilia, Pallister is autogynephilic. Nowhere does Pallister satisfy any questions where he receives a minus 1 that I am aware of.

Although Pallister reported that he had engaged in gender role play, he was utterly incapable of any insight into his condition. Pallister dismissed any suggestion of a relationship between his sexual practices and his proclivities towards gender transition even though the practices were clearly autogynephilic in nature and were not indigenous to females.

On August 30, 2007 Patricia Aldridge sent a broadcast e-mail message having the subject line, Transsexual Painter Dies, to her distribution list. Aldridge's e-mail message became the heart of a defamation action that I launched against her shortly after she sent the e-mail message. Click here to read Aldridge's write up concerning the death of Jennifer Pallister.